salad days

I have lost a bit more than a stone.  I don't know exactly how much because I am generally fairly uninterested in how much I weigh and so didn't get around to weighing myself for the first couple of weeks.

I used to be a bit more than 11 stone.  Now I'm a bit less than 10 stone.  Disclaimer:  I am REALLY HEAVY.   I think I must have rocks in my belly, or toenails made out of lead or something.  I've never been as big as 11 stone implies.

I did it by moving more and eating less.

To be more specific, I did it by firstly signing up to Food Focus which is pretty nifty.  I didn't think I had much to learn about food choices and calories, but I was surprised.  If you burn more than you eat, you WILL lose weight.  As much as you fancy losing.  Easy.

Then I started Couch to 5k using Raaaaahbert Ullreys' bloody useful podcasts.  You just put that week's podcast on your MP3 and nice Mr Ullrey tells you when to walk and when to run, and plays terrible music and gives you encouragement.  I run about 5 days a week.  Nothing too impressive - ran for 25 minutes straight this evening which was my longest run yet, and am very pleased with myself.  I run in 40 degree heat, which has to count for something.

Also we bought a Wii Fit.  Complete waste of money, but we've got it now so I feel obliged to do the muscle workouts every day.  About 45 minutes of leg lifts and sit ups and stuff.  Surprised myself by easily managing 20 press ups alternating with 20 one handed press up twists today.  Maybe it's better than I thought.  Rhythm boxing and hula hooping are good.

Am also doing half an hour or so of yoga every evening (Wii Fit again).

So, hooray for (less of) me!

I do want to lose about half a stone more, but it's getting hard now so we'll see.  I'm still mum shaped, but less so than before.  I don't mind the flabby belly and droopy boobs as much as I might - my fabulous children have ravaged me, it's true, but I can't begrudge them a sag or a stretch mark. 

I have been buying cute sun dresses to celebrate.   

- You start Mummy.

- Okay.  It's yellow, you peel it and monkeys like to eat it.

- Is it a banana?

- It is.  Well done.  Your turn.

- Okay.  It's made out of a crane, and it's a crane and it's called a crane.

- Is it a crane?

- No.

- Are you coming upstairs now Sprog?

- Uhhhm... no.  No, I think I'd better stay downstairs and make the world all sparkly.

Mummy?  You have to be very kind to me today.

Oh?  Why's that?

Because today I'm feeling a bit bored.

I don't think you are.

I am.  I'm ever so bored.

I'm not sure you know what bored means.

I do.

What does it mean then?

I want you to tell me.

No.  I want you to tell me.  What do you think bored means?

Well.  Okay.  I've got three questions.  Question one; I'm feeling bored.  Question two; I'm a bit delicate because I might have eaten a sugar ant.  Question three; well, what's question three Mummy?

I don't know what question three is.

So!  You HAVE to be KIND to me!!

Various sites are blocked in the UAE.  A particular page pops up letting you know that His Excellency Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum has given that particular page the thumbs down.  Lest you think I've been searching for rude sites, I should tell you that Flickr is blocked, and any site that uses Flickr as a host.  Skype is blocked.  Annoying.  Last week, Vox was blocked too.  Today I can log in, but just in case it gets blocked again I shall be taking the preventative measures of adding you all to my bloglines (I can read blocked sites in bloglines), and I shall start blogging on blogger I guess.

How do I make my blogger blog pretty?

Or is there somewhere that would be better?

Not that I've been hanging around much anyway, but if I disappear and never ever comment on your blogs again you'll know why. 

Food pyramid for times of stress

And just for fun here is a projection of my diet in food pyramid form should we have a secure income two months from now:

Pyramid II

My fault.  Not really sure what happened.  One minute I was pulling out of a junction, the next moment everything was very noisy and I was spinning round and round.  Maybe I looked the wrong way as I pulled out?

We're all fine.

I'm a bit upset about it because it's not like I was fiddling with the radio, or speeding, or anything that I can blame and not do again.  I had both the children in the car with me.  I hate that I put them in danger.  I hate that I can't be sure never to do it again.

The other woman got out and started shrieking obscenities at me (ha ha I just typed 'obscentitties').  I called over that I was just checking if my children were okay and I think she sort of snapped out of the initial shock and was really nice after that.  In fact by the end we had a big hug and exchanged mobile numbers.

When you crash in Dubai you are not allowed to leave the scene or move the cars until the police have been and issued a pink slip to the driver at fault, and a green slip to the other driver.  I got the pink.  The police were lovely and put on the nee-naws for Sprog.  They carry frightening guns.  I don't like that.

All I keep thinking is thank fucking christ for car seats.  Both of my precious babies were strapped securely into 5-point harnesses, properly installed into the car.  It's not an exaggeration to say that they might have saved their lives this week.  When you think that much of my driving over here is at speed on 7-lane highways, my little smash wasn't even very serious, but everything in the car was thrown about and they would have hit the windscreen had they not been strapped in.  Out here we are in a minority, that we use carseats.  Most children rattle around in the back, or the front, or climbing over the seats, or camping in the boot.  European families get out here and seem to adopt the Dubai way and don't bother.  I can't stop thinking about it.  Thank god they were in car seats.  About half of my friends over here don't use carseats. 

It was also lucky that Mr S decided that we would probably be safest in a normous 4X4.  There are very few small vehicles on the road out here.  I know, but when it's my call, the short term survival of my babies wins out over the long term survival of the planet.

I drove past where the crash happened again this morning.  All the glass and metal and bits of engine are gone, but there are some serious, thick black skids on the road.

Hooray for the humble carseat. 

I don't know whether or not to send Sprog to school.

In Dubai they start school at 3 years old, doing KG1 or FS1.

2 weeks ago she started nursery for the first time.  She goes 2 mornings a week. 

The nursery doesn't do KG1 or FS1.  It has no curriculum.  They just have fun and paint and have a letter of the week and splash in paddling pools and decorate donuts and play on the slide.

This September she should start KG1.  5 mornings a week from 8.00 - 12.30, plus a 40 minute commute there and a 25 minute commute back.

I have been fighting to find her a school place since I got here.  Now I think I may have got one and I've got cold feet.

She's two!

She's too little for school.

She could stay on at her nursery for another year and then I could try and get her in to KG2, without her having done KG1.  She'd be behind then, the other children will have spent a year doing jolly phonics and writing their names and learning Arabic (yes, learning Arabic).

Or, I could put her into KG1 in September 2010, making her a year older than her classmates.  Not ideal.  There is a big developmental difference between a 3 year old and a 4 year old.

Or I could just accept that she has to go to school 5 mornings a week in September.  It's 6 months from now and children change so quickly that perhaps when September rolls around both she and I will be totally ready for it.

She loves nursery.  She was more than ready for it.

I don't know what to do for the best.

I think I'll do a poo Mummy.  A teeny tiny poo.  Like a baby poo.  And it will fly out of my bottom like a horse!  A horse with wings.  A poo like Pegasus!  Except MY flying horse will be pink.  And made of poo.

I obviously don't love it.  I don't hate it either.  I nothing it. 

I have not made any friends.  I am still chugging along with this.  I've invited a couple of people for coffee.  We've had a nice time.  Our children have played together.  I suppose I ought to be trying harder.  Maybe I need to ramp up the chattiness and sparkle.  The not terribly impressive truth is that I can't be arsed to be all friendly and chatty and perform like a dancing monkey.  I'm just not feeling it.

Sprog has started playschool.  I'm not massively impressed with it, but neither do I have any qualms about leaving my firstborn there.  It's fine.  It'll do.

People imagine us living the life of Riley in the sun, on the beach, in a villa, with a pool - so glamerous.  We live on a dusty building site.  It's ugly.  I fight a daily battle to keep as much of the desert out of my house as I can.  The air conditioning has been broken for a month now.  It reaches 38 degrees some days.  The fly screen is ripped and I can't seem to find anyone who will mend it.  Mr S did it with duct tape, but Sprog ripped it all off.

I go to some toddler groups and chat politely with the other mums.  Fuckit.  I've done all this once.  I just can't be arsed.

Wilfie is achingly beautiful.  He has started to talk - little sounds that he knows what they mean, and he shouts them at me, grinning, beligerent and shy all at once.  He stands up and wanders about pushing his high chair in front of him.  He crawls with demon speed.  He laughs and waves and claps.  He is still a boob monster and it's more than I could dream of to take his milkies away.  I love the way he troughs in, completely selfishly and inelegantly with no thought of thanks.  It is his right.  Then he grins at me.  He is very cuddly.  He has no intention of moving out of my bed.  He wakes twice a night for a feed.  He eats everything I give him, even curry, but he particularly loves tomatoes and oranges and any sort of berry.  In the bath he likes to stand up and then bob up and down, shrieking with laughter that the slapping sound his plump buttocks make on the water.  His favourite thing in the world is still his sister.  He follows her around like a puppy, bobbing his head and dancing to make her laugh.  He dances as soon as he hears a tune, and sometimes just jives to the tunes in his head.  He has been bitten six times on his forehead by a mosquito.  It is not a good look.  He is still beautiful though.  Sometimes I feel sad that the only people who know this darling little boy are his father, his sister and me.  No one else knows him.  Mostly I feel lucky to have him.

Sprog has cottoned on the the scrumptiousness of her brother and learned to use it to her advantage.  A tense moment in the Splog house was expertly navigated thus:
Me: SPROG!  What on EARTH have you DONE?  It's everywhere.  I TOLD you not to touch and you KNEW that was naughty.  Who do you think is going to clean up this mess?  And what do you say to  mummy?
[fraught silence]
S:  Hey everyone!  Everyone look at WILFIE!!  Isn't he CUTE?!  Look at him awwwwwwww....

So yes.  I am still here.  Dubai is still crap.  On balance I am very lucky.  It leaves me with little to blog about.

I'd better go and make some pancakes.